'If India has international aspirations, they might as well go for such realignments, even though for brokerage houses, it will mean more overheads -- like more personnel and longer man hours that need to be compensated, said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, the equity head for brokerage firm SMC Capitals.

1. Indian bourses defer longer trading hours to Jan 4
Mumbai, Dec 17 (IANS) In an attempt to boost trading volumes and correlate better with
other Asian bourses, two top stock exchanges in India Thursday said they will advance the
opening bell to 9 a.m. and increase trading hours by 55 minutes -- but from Jan 4 instead of
Friday.
The stakeholders, including brokerages and investors, however, remained divided on the
move.
Both the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) said they
will change the timings from the present opening bell at 9:55 a.m., while retaining the close
of trade at 3:30 p.m.
The move followed a directive from the markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board
of India (SEBI).
'Based on the market feedback, it has been jointly decided that the revision of market
opening timing to 9 a.m. shall be effective from Jan 4, 2010,' the two bourses said in a joint
statement.
'In the interim, the current market open timing of 9.55 a.m. shall continue.'
The two exchanges had earlier decided to implement a revision in the trading hours from
Friday.
'We welcome this move of postponing the implementation of extended trading hours,' said
Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director of brokerage firm Angel Broking. 'There
has been large scale apprehension associated with the change of timing.'
According to an equity researcher with another brokerage, many large brokers were geared
for the additional trading hours, but the smaller ones needed time to adjust and adapt.

2. The decision to postpone the implementation will give the smaller stakeholders the much-
needed breather.
'The new timings will help exchanges get more business, especially from foreign funds. This
was going to other Asian markets in Hong Kong and Singapore,' said Jagannadham
Thunuguntla, the equity head for brokerage firm SMC Capitals.
'If India has international aspirations, they might as well go for such realignments, even
though for brokerage houses, it will mean more overheads -- like more personnel and
longer man hours that need to be compensated.'
SEBI, which primarily initiated the move, said it will soon come out with a white paper on the
issue, explaining the need for fine-tuning the trading and how the investing community will
benefit from the same.
Though the change of timings had no impact on the market performance Thursday, the
sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) closed at 16,894.25 points,
down 18.52 points or 0.11 percent over its previous close at 16,912.77 points.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty, too, ended a
tad lower at 5,041.75 points, against the previous close at 5,042.05 points, with a marginal
fall of 0.3 points.